A conflicted Footy Show

James Hird, contrite trending to downright miserable, turned up on The Footy Show and read an apology to Scott McLaren, umpires, the football community, and the planet Earth with the sparkling alacrity of a kidnap victim reciting a prepared statement from his captors.

Nothing further was said about what might have driven a normally ridiculously level-headed individual such as Hird to the point of the previous week's uncharacteristic brain-eruption, although that in itself was a potentially enlightening area for further discussion.

But the subject of umpiring, or purported deficiencies thereof, WAS subsequently raised, and it came from an unusual context.

That segment began unpromisingly with Sam Newman at his most nakedly absent-minded remarking to Eddie out of nowhere: "I'm sure I'm meant to ask you something here, or do something."

Probably one of the more fundamental qualities of a good old-fashioned, parliamentary-style Dorothy Dixer is choosing someone to ask it who is likely to remember what the actual question is.

The subject, as it turned out, was Eddie McGuire's allegedly "conflicted" call of the Lions-Collingwood game, particularly his comments concerning one of the goal umpires. Sam got there finally.

"Do you think if anyone else had said that - if someone else had said that and (they) weren't the president of Collingwood, I doubt if that would have been reported. What is so bad about saying that?"

Given that the whole tenor of such objections as had been raised was based on Eddie's hybrid position as match commentator/Collingwood president, Sam's departure into Geoffrey Robertson "hypotheticals" territory seemed spectacularly beside the point.

If he's not the Collingwood FC president, there's no issue, true, or at least it's a different issue. But he IS. Heck, if the sky weren't blue, it might be Fremantle colours.

Garry Lyon was next at bat. "You gotta be able to call it as a commentator as you see it, and people look that hard for something that's not there." Yep, some folks do. Which - as indicated repeatedly in this column some aeons ago by an individual too modest to be named here - is going to be the downside of having your numero uno football personality calling games when he is president of one of the teams involved.

He can be honest, professional and as painstakingly even-handed as King Solomon of Old Testament FC fame, and media/public perception is still going to be up for grabs. And in the media game - as Eddie, Sam and G. Lyon understand as well as anyone - perception is nine-tenths of the law.

From there, beyond a rather awkward interlude of self-justification from McGuire, the program, by its normal standards, fell apart. Which is to say, it eschewed "entertainment" elements entirely for a time, and became an uncommonly interesting and detailed discussion on the problems of improving on-field officiating.

This is supposedly the type of thing other footy talk shows do well and The Footy Show cannot. Nine-tenths of the law can be plenty unfair sometimes.